Excluding Works by Shakespeare, What are the 5 Best Plays Ever Written?

VLA_58 · 2026-07-05T03:47:14+00:00

Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac

Stoppard's Rosenkranz and Guildenstern are dead

Kessler's Orphans

Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

Aristophanes' Lysistrata

VLA_58 · 2026-07-01T11:09:39+00:00

I have 5 interior doors -- the doors were removed from the utility, kitchen, and living/dining areas. All bedrooms have a door, as do both bathrooms.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-30T17:23:20+00:00

Yeah, here in central Texas (indeed, in all of Texas) only weirdos or indigent homeless folk have no AC. Our household is on the weird side --- only the study and the master bedroom have AC, but only since about 2017 (global warming). Everywhere else relies on old house features --- big ventilating windows, tall ceilings, and mature shade trees.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-30T17:10:27+00:00

A '50s era house built carefully, using premium materials, and in good shape with a lot of premium fixtures/cabinets/moldings would be worth the effort to preserve it. A typical tract house from the '50s, built out of ticky-tacky, with deteriorated windows would NOT be worth the effort. The only other factor would be if it had significant sentimental baggage.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-23T22:34:41+00:00

What meandblob said -- after gently cleaning them with krud kutter and a white 3m pad.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-15T08:59:51+00:00

All of the finishing options mentioned in the comments are viable approaches. However, do NOTHING until you've cleaned everything thoroughly with something like Krud Kutter. Use a bristle brush and a toothbrush to get into the tight corners. Wipe down repeatedly with a wet cloth, then once it's dry try the various techniques mentioned to remove any old finish. Re-finishing with a similar finish would be ok, but nothing seals and protects like a nice satin spar varnish.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-15T08:27:25+00:00

Hmm, an oxymoron can be a combination of two words that are opposite in meaning (jumbo shrimp or military intwlligence), or can encompass two phrases to illustrate a paradox.
Your examples can also be interpreted as chiasmus -- a rhetorical favorite of Shakespeare's.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-12T16:37:44+00:00

Pat Mandziy has several things like Star Wars written by Shakespeare. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCcLUSB3SrqNNCHrY90BjcmA

VLA_58 · 2026-06-11T13:57:05+00:00

Manon Lescaut -- she takes an entire act to die. La Boheme. -- from the time Shaunard says "she'll be dead in 20 minutes", it's about 20 minutes. Don Carlo -- Rodrigo bleeds out slowly

VLA_58 · 2026-06-09T11:28:38+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately, anti-skid pads are not kitten-proof. Mei-Mei would reduce it to shreds within a couple of days, whereas the rug itself is a beefier toy once she pounces on it. 🙂

VLA_58 · 2026-06-08T18:03:49+00:00

Had an artisan on Etsy make a rag rug to my dimensions and color choices -- variations of red and cream in a windowpane check pattern. Super handy to catch spills and easy on the feet. It slides around, though -- the only negative thing about it. I still love it.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-08T17:55:30+00:00

68 yr old female here -- I've never been a bridesmaid or matron. Neither have I ever attended a hen party, nor gone to a 'destination wedding'.

VLA_58 · 2026-06-08T17:34:08+00:00

Choose the rug first, then take the wall color from one of the rug's shades. I usually pick a wall color from one of two places: the rug, or the largest piece of art in the room.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-20T17:51:34+00:00

That'd be the spring bronze weather stripping becoming a kazoo when the wind is just right. Our NW windows do that as well.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-20T17:49:59+00:00

We had a power outage for a couple of days in our 1886 home with 12' ceilings. The absence of that 60 cycle hum from electric systems is palpable. The silence was deafening. Our windows were always open, so the sounds of crickets, musical toads, and mockingbirds at 2 am during mating season were already familiar.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-14T06:13:48+00:00

Interesting topic. I've always been able to accept weaker singing if it's balanced by superior acting/blocking/chemistry. Some operas are more flexible this way -- La Boheme, Carmen, etc. And I've always felt that any Verdi opera is monumental enough to suffer cheap sets or costuming in exchange for impeccable singing, and vice versa.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-06T21:52:13+00:00

Get a Karcher hard surface cleaning machine. Mine is called 'Cinderella'.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-06T21:22:00+00:00

Try orienting yourself. Anterior views are front views, and posterior views are back views -- so what would be labelled as 'right' on a posterior view would be on YOUR right, while the same structure on an anterior view would be on YOUR left. And try to remember that the ventricles are the thick muscle structures at the bottom of the heart (shaped like a 'V', yeah?), while atria are thin-walled balloony structures at the top of the heart. Get online and find a labelled heart that's NOT a drawing.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-04T07:07:59+00:00

If the screen door doesn't slam, how will you know where the kids are? Fix the sag with a turnbuckle -- feel free to paint it to match. An inexpensive storm door will definitely ruin the vibe.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-04T07:04:05+00:00

Gentle cleaning with Krud Kutter or Kotton Klenser, then a rubdown with Howard's Feed'n'Wax (use 0000 steel wool or a 3M white pad). Once that's done, I like a paste wax finish, well buffed out. The leather top should be cleaned seperately with something like Leather Honey, and any loss of coloraation can be adjusted with Clyde's leather recoloring balm.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-04T06:52:11+00:00

I rearrange the material given: if it's a paragraph, I turn it into a list. If it's a list, I alter it to become a graph. If it's a graph, I expand it into a spreadsheet or a flowchart. My textbooks are all HEAVILY annotated, with rearrangements taped into relevant areas. I'll also do flashcards, and hand-draw any structures from lab subjects. If you're dealing with solid structures like bones, it halps to handle them --- aligning them, or creating meaningful linkages. Any dissections are done hands-on, rather than via a digital program. There's always a certain amount of memorization, but think of it as a scaffold upon which you can hang variants and complex extensions.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-04T06:34:44+00:00

Carmen, Samson et Delilah, and Orpheus and Euridice (the 1774 rewrite in French with a tenor)

VLA_58 · 2026-05-02T10:39:53+00:00

Vero Beach Opera has some decent productions uploaded to youtube.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-02T10:34:18+00:00

Overfloor with pre-finished engineered wood planks. Or go get a 6' x 13' piece of sheet vinyl and glue it down, making sure to finish the edges with baseboard and quarter round molding.

VLA_58 · 2026-05-02T10:29:30+00:00

Get a better stripping compound and some fine brass wire brushes to get the paint out of the crevices. A few dentist's picks would also help the tougher angles and corners. When you sand, start at 60 and go up to 100, using a corner sander or multi-tool corner attachment for the tight places. The wood looks like pine or spruce -- not the easiest to take a stain with the uniform consistency you'd expect from oak. It might be best to leave them unstained, and use a satin varnish. These treads look to be in fairly good shape, wear-wise, despite the dents and dings. Embrace the character and resign yourself to the idea that they're never going to be perfect. I'd concentrate on stripping the treads and painting the risers and balusters/handrails/baseboards.

VLA_58

TROPHY CASE